A minister has dismissed claims that Matt Hancock ignored scientific advice over Covid tests for care homes.
Helen Whately, the care minister, claimed “selective snippets” of leaked WhatsApp messages were misleading. She acknowledged there was a “limited quantity” of tests at the start of the coronavirus outbreak but said the government had been confronted with “tough decisions” about who to prioritise for them.
She backed Hancock, the former health secretary, and pointed to a previously undisclosed email that she said was fresh evidence that he had followed public health advice instead of ignoring the then chief medical officer for England, Chris Whitty.
Whitty was said to have told Hancock in April 2020 that “all [people] going into care homes” should be tested, and to have recommended “segregation whilst awaiting result”, according to a cache of 100,000 leaked WhatsApp messages obtained by the Telegraph.
Hospital patients transferred to care homes were tested from that point, but it took several months until those arriving from the community were as well.
Answering an urgent question in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Whately said an email was sent immediately after the text exchange. It “says we can press ahead straight away with hospitals testing patients who are going to care homes”, Whately said.
She added that the email set out an aspiration that “as soon as capacity allows and we’ve worked out an operational way of delivering this” then “everyone going into a care home from the community could be tested”. No explanation about who sent the email was given.
Fending off criticism about the government’s handling of Covid, Whately said she was shocked and disappointed at the tone of comments from MPs who said care homes had been neglected at the start of the pandemic.
She also said attacks from opposition MPs were “political games”, and other senior Conservatives who leapt to Hancock’s defence called them “opportunistic”.
Asked whether other ministers had Covid tests couriered to them, as a message from Hancock’s aide claimed happened for one of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s children, Whately said only that she used the same service as everybody else.
Hancock was not present in parliament for the urgent question, but has issued a strong denial of any wrongdoing after the launch of the Daily Telegraph’s investigation, which has been called “the lockdown files”.
He has said the private messages, obtained by Isabel Oakeshott (who co-wrote his “pandemic diaries”), were “stolen” and it was “categorically untrue” that he ignored Whitty’s advice.
Labour called on Hancock to aim for “more humility and less celebrity”. Liz Kendall, the shadow care minister, said that contrary to Hancock’s claim to have thrown a “protective ring” around care homes during the Covid, the WhatsApp messages showed that “nothing could be further from the truth”.
She said 17,000 people had died of Covid in care homes between Whitty’s advice to test all people moving into care homes – including from the community – and the government following suit. Care home residents and staff “were simply not a priority”, Kendall claimed.
Earlier, Keir Starmer used prime minister’s questions to challenge Rishi Sunak over the slow progress of the Covid inquiry, saying the revelations from Hancock’s messages would be deeply hurtful for bereaved families.
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“We don’t know the truth of what happened yet,” the Labour leader said. “There are too many messages and too many unknowns. But families across the country will look at this – the sight of politicians writing books portraying themselves as heroes, or selectively leaking messages, will be an insulting and ghoulish spectacle for them.
“At the heart of this is every family who made enormous sacrifices for the good of the country, or who tragically lost loved ones. The country deserves better.”
Starmer called for the inquiry to be completed by the end of this year. Sunak said the process was being fully resourced but that it was independent and that ministers could not dictate the timing.
A spokesperson for Hancock said: “These stolen messages have been doctored to create a false story that Matt rejected clinical advice on care home testing. This is flat wrong. On 14 April, Matt received a response to his request for advice from the chief medical officer that testing was needed for people going into care homes, which he enthusiastically accepted.
“Later that day he convened an operational meeting on delivering testing for care homes where he was advised it was not currently possible to test everyone entering care homes, which he also accepted. Matt concluded that the testing of people leaving hospital for care homes should be prioritised because of the higher risks of transmission, as it wasn’t possible to mandate everyone going into care homes got tested.
“The Telegraph have doctored the messages by excluding a key line from the texts by [his adviser] Allan Nixon. Nixon says ‘I wasn’t in testing mtg’, which changes the context of the exchange depicted in the article. It demonstrates there was a meeting at which advice on deliverability was given. By omitting this, the messages imply Matt simply overruled clinical advice. That is categorically untrue. He went as far as was possible, as fast as possible, to expand testing and save lives. This story categorically shows that the right place for this analysis of what happened in the pandemic is in the inquiry.”
Hancock is said to be “considering all options” in response to Oakeshott’s leak of WhatsApp messages she received while working on his memoir.
“She’s broken a legal NDA. Her behaviour is outrageous,” a source close to the former health secretary said.
